The Crazy Eights
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Dean knows just how to distract a sick Sam.


**The Crazy Eights**  
K Hanna Korossy**  
**

"Four. You really shouldn't be in here, you know."

"Nope, no fours. We just spent seven hours together in the car, Sam—if you're gonna get me sick, it's too late now. Six."

True. After the third time Sam had asked him to pull over so he could throw up, Dean stopped at the next motel they came across and got them a room, but they'd already been on the road half the day by then. "Go fish. I'm just saying, you'd probably be a lot better off out there watching TV or doing some research. Seven."

Dean was studying his cards with all the intensity of a pro gambler. He pulled one out to pass to Sam. "What, and miss this riveting game? Jack. You know, we could be playing poker."

"It's a little hard to bluff when you're—" Sam groaned, feeling the too-familiar lurch, and dropped his cards. "Don't peek," he gasped before turning to the toilet bowl and starting to retch.

His stomach had emptied itself a long time ago, so all that came out was bile and slimy saliva. That didn't stop his guts from trying their best to turn themselves inside-out before they settled uneasily again. Sam panted through the aftermath, chin resting on the plastic seat.

The toilet was flushed under him, and glass of water hovered in front of his face. He took it with a clumsy hand, rinsed, and spit. The water was traded for another glass, and Sam groaned again. "Dean…"

"Fluids, Sam. I'm not taking you to a hospital in the middle of nowhere for dehydration."

"It's not gonna stay down."

"Sooner or later it will—ginger ale's good for that, right?"

They'd had no mother's ministrations from their childhood to go by, but young Sammy had read about ginger ale for upset stomachs once in a book, and Dean had taken it to heart. He'd always made sure after that that Sam had soda when he was sick. Sam had asked Jess to pick him up some when the cafeteria meatballs gave him food poisoning once, but somehow it hadn't been the same.

Sam smiled wanly and sipped, more to make Dean happy than out of any real thirst. Still, it seemed to calm his queasy stomach a little. Sam finally set the half-empty glass down and picked up his cards again.

"Where were we?" he asked tiredly.

"Jack. You sure you don't wanna lay down?" Dean was still eyeing him like Sam might keel over at any moment.

He huffed a laugh. "You've already brought most of the bed in here." Sam was positively swaddled in a nest of pillows, sheets, and blankets. Dean probably would have brought the mattress in if it would've fit. "I'm fine—I'd rather stay here then keep running in every five minutes. Jacks." He handed over a pair of cards.

Dean placed a set of four cards on the floor between them. "That's what trashcans are for," he groused, then grinned at Sam. "Hey, remember when you ate that whole box of Booberry and you couldn't stop puking blue all night?"

Sam's stomach rumbled unhappily. "Yeah, thanks for the tasteful reminder. Aces."

"_I _thought it was funny," Dean muttered. Sam remembered differently, such as his brother hadn't not getting much sleep that night, either, patting a five or six-year-old Sammy's back and reading to him in between bouts of nausea to try to distract him. Of course, that might have partly been guilt from giving him the box of cereal in the first place, but still, points for caring. Sam shook his head as Dean continued, "No aces, Ace."

"You're supposed to say, 'go fish,'" Sam said.

"You're supposed to be too old for this game," Dean shot back mildly.

"Fine," Sam said, suddenly irritable, and tossed his cards down. "We'll play poker."

"Hey, not when I'm winning we're not!" Dean gave him an outraged look, gathered Sam's cards carefully to keep from seeing them, and shoved them back at him. "Go fish—you happy now?"

"Ecstatic," Sam said dryly. But he took the cards. His stomach lurched and settled again, and he drank a little more ginger ale under Dean's watchful eye.

"You wanna try the crackers?" His brother nodded over at the little travel-sized box of Saltines he'd picked up at the gas station next door.

"Not yet." The last thing he needed was more to throw up. "What do you want next?"

"Uh…" Dean scanned his cards. "Eight."

Sam handed a card over, annoyed by his brother's sudden grin.

"For picking this game, you really suck at it."

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly at my best right now. Four."

"You said that already."

"So? I'm saying it again."

Dean shrugged. "Fish."

Sam sighed, took a card, and smiled. "Picked up a four."

"Good for you. Two."

"Go fish." He rearranged his cards, lined up his next two requests, then looked up at Dean. "We're only a few hours out of Hadleysville now, right?"

His brother nodded, answered absently. "'Bout a hundred miles. We'd be there by now if you hadn't had those pork chops and started hurling."

"I don't think it was the pork chops, Dean—you don't have a temperature from food poisoning. I probably picked something up from Rachel Mirsky."

"Rachel was possessed, Sam—she wasn't throwing up because she caught a bug."

His nose wrinkled unhappily at the memory. "Doesn't mean she wasn't sick, too," Sam said with a shrug. "Ten. If it is a bug, I may be down for a couple of days. You should go on to Hadleysville without me."

His brother didn't even look up as he handed Sam a card and reshuffled his hand. "It's a haunted house. It can wait. Ace."

Sam sighed, gave him the card. "But we know it's a—"

"Sam." The cool glare cut him off. "Forget it. We go together."

"Someone else could get hurt in that house," Sam argued softly. "It sounds like another generational ghost like the one you and Dad got rid of in Woodson, and you could have done that one alone."

Dean frowned faintly. "How did you know about Woodson?"

Oh. Sam's jaw worked a moment, then he looked intently at his cards. "You must've mentioned it," he said casually.

"No," the word was slow and deliberate, "I didn't. It's not in the journal, either, so don't even try that," he added as Sam's mouth opened.

Dean knew him too well. Sam colored, glanced at him, but quickly looked away again. "All right, I…uh, I was there."

"In Woodson? When we were?"

He didn't look up to see his brother's expression but could hear the incredulity. "I read something in the newspaper and I just…it sounded like you and Dad, and I was on break and Woodson was only a couple hours away…" Sam paused, no longer seeing his cards, and finally dared a half-look up at Dean.

Dean was staring at him like he was trying to figure out what to think. But finally he scoffed a laugh. "And you were getting on Dad's case for not saying anything when he'd swing by Stanford to check on you?"

Sam leaned his head back tiredly against the wall. "I left to go to school, Dean, not because I hated you guys," he said quietly. "It didn't stop me from missing you or worrying about you."

Dean's humor drained away just like that, and now it was he who avoided Sam's gaze. He shuffled the cards in his hand, cleared his throat. "How many times?"

"Three. Amber and Salt Flats, too."

Dean looked up. "Salt Flats?"

Sam's jaw tightened. "I came to see you in the hospital, but you were still unconscious. I stayed in town until you got out. My friends covered my classes for me."

"You could have come by again."

Sam smiled miserably. "Dad was always there, and I wasn't sure…" He shook his head suddenly. "Forget it. Past is past, right?"

Dean looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. "Right." He ghosted Sam a smile, a rare genuine one, before going back to his cards. A beat. "Whose turn is it, anyway?"

"Mine. King."

"Go fish. Eight."

"Nope."

"You're supposed to say, 'go fish.'"

Sam glowered at him. "Four."

"Go—"

Sam's stomach twisted again, and he dropped his cards to lean over the toilet again. The nausea wasn't as quick to pass this time. He drew up his legs to his stomach, moaning between heaves. The ginger ale made a reappearance, but his stomach refused to calm even after it purged itself. Sam's head drooped lower with exhaustion after each surge.

A hand braced his forehead, another rested on his back. Sam gave up trying to hold his head up and let Dean prop him as he succumbed to the spasms of his body. When they finally left him limp and gasping, it was Dean who held the water for him as Sam rinsed, then eased him back against the bathroom wall. Sam opened his eyes to his brother's frowning face.

"Maybe we should go to the hospital," Dean hedged.

Sam rolled his head tiredly. "It's stomach flu, Dean—people go through it all the time." Still, he had to catch his breath before he went on. "I won't get dehydrated by tomorrow. If it's not better, then maybe."

Dean chewed his lip. "You ready to lie down now?"

Sam looked at the cards scattered around them and didn't even have the energy to pick them up. "But you were winning," he said with a small grin.

"Oh, I won," Dean said smugly. "Default."

"Rematch tomorrow," Sam responded.

Dean shrugged. "Hadleysville isn't going anywhere."

Apparently, neither were they. Which actually sounded good, even if it meant a day spent curled around the wastebasket in bed. At least he could count on Dean to provide distraction. Sam held out a hand tiredly, let his brother pull him to his feet. "Okay, but not Go Fish."

"Thank God," Dean said fervently, a probably unnecessary but reassuring arm across Sam's back as he shuffled back out into the room. "You ready for a real game finally?"

"Yeah." Sam smiled at him. "War."

**The End**


End file.
